Transcript of the beginning of the meeting:

Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, Mr. Yakemenko. How are you organizing your work in the agency?

Vasily Yakemenko: Mr. Putin, the work is well organized up to now. I would like to thank you for your attention to our "department" if we can call it that way. Both this meeting and the fact that for the first time in many years a Federal Agency for Youth Affairs has been established proves that we have great potential.

I would like to briefly outline what we have achieved. We have only been working for seven months, and yet, we have already completed a survey and for first time we have comprehensive figures about younger generation.

These figures are interesting both form the point of view of where young people live, what they do and the problems they face. For example, there are 4 million people, but we don't know where they are. That is, they don't fit in anywhere, we cannot locate them. They are, primarily, "homeless children."

For the first time we have an understanding of who we are working with, and not just in this country. We are beginning to look at what happens with our talented young people abroad.

Today we know how many young people leave this country, what universities they are from and what they are studying, whether it is the humanities or engineering sciences. On the whole, we see a positive dynamic here, 6%.

Vladimir Putin: In 1990, 18% of Moscow State University students left Russia, in 1991 it was 23%, in 1992 - 27%, and in 2007 - 7%.

Vasily Yakemenko: That is correct, but there is a different issue, we are unable to fully understand the professional level of those who leave. We had no statistics available, but now we have these figures.

Vladimir Putin: The greatest number left in 1992-1993.

Vasily Yakemenko: Yes, true the number could be called enormous.

Vladimir Putin: Actually, not enormous, but about one third of students.

Vasily Yakemenko: Yes, those young people left because they were unable to fulfill themselves in this country.

Vladimir Putin: Students left from virtually all universities: Moscow State University, St. Petersburg University, Novosibirsk State University... And total figure for the years 1991-1992 was 27%-28%. And now it has fallen to 6%, hasn't it?

Vasily Yakemenko: Yes, it has. And there is another set of problems we have embarked on. We are currently gathering information on young scientists and postgraduates who work abroad. We already know about several thousand people, not only those who are living there and are employed at scientific research centers, but also those who are ready to come back. I think that in several months we will be ready to approach these people and discuss the conditions for their return.

A number of questions arise in this connection that need to be solved.